The upcoming free-to-play card battler delivers a deep tactical experience and celebrates all eras of Star Trek, but its success may ultimately hinge on how it handles microtransactions.
One upcoming video game that might be flying under the radar for many fans is Star Trek: Warp, a free-to-play card battler that draws inspiration from every corner of the franchise. We recently checked out the Steam demo ahead of its September release, and we think the potential is here for a great card game — as long as microtransactions don’t get out of hand.
Star Trek: Warp tasks players with controlling seven lanes of attack as two ships face off. Each lane is a potential opening for each ship to damage each other, and it’s up to each player to use cards to defend their ship and attack the enemy’s. Having to manage seven lanes makes you think tactically, as even a brief opening could leave your ship vulnerable.
The cards themselves are either characters, items, or locations from the franchise. These combinations can lead to eclectic battlefields that involve, say, T’Pring from Strange New Worlds facing off against Kes from Voyager, or Mara, a character from The Original Series episode “Day of the Dove” going up against Deep Space Nine’s Benjamin Sisko. Considering the sheer variety of cards available, Warp clearly offers a welcoming celebration of all parts of Star Trek — appropriate considering this game arrives just in time for the franchise’s 60th anniversary.
The demo’s tutorial does a fine job laying out key concepts — like how players can utilize each card’s key attributes to tactically plan their attack, or use their ship’s unique card to radically change the trajectory of a fight. When the player completes the demo and tries a real fight, the complexity of Warp opens up and makes the player really think about their strategy.
Aesthetically, we think the game mostly looks great. The user interface is clean and sensible, an important quality when teaching players a complex card game, and we appreciate how each card notes where in the franchise that subject appeared. But, we think the stylistic filters applied to characters can make some of their appearances seem off. Just take Neelix in the below screenshot, for example. Definitely something worth tweaking for the full release.
Being able to select which ship serves as your deck is a pleasing touch, as surely the option to pick between notable ships like the original Enterprise, a Borg Cube, the Sh’Raan, or a few others will tickle hardcore fans and provide each deck unique options.
How well this game holds up upon release will depend on how intrusive microtransactions are. Warp is free to play, so microtransactions are a given, and we hope they are only used for aesthetic purposes — or at the very least, they don’t make the game grossly pay to win. The demo doesn’t offer a look at the in-game store.
Originally announced back in May, there’s no firm release date for Star Trek: Warp yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it dropped very close to the franchise’s 60th anniversary.
You can try the demo for yourself on Steam.
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